My husband works in development in the non-profit sector, so he's knowledgeable of "best practices" that work for fundraising efforts. I had him help me when I got going on my efforts, I figured it'd be helpful if I passed along the advice he gave me to the rest of you.
Make sure you set a profile picture.
Not having one makes it seem like you couldn't be bothered. Having one makes it more personal and allows people to better relate to you -- and that means they're more likely to donate, and more likely to donate more.
Make sure you personalize the appeal message on your profile page. You don't have to write it from scratch, but it's crucial that you make it personal. Why are you participating in this campaign? Why is this important to you? Connect it to you on a personal level. The generic language is good, but putting it in your own words is much, much better.
As an aside to that point, please don't say your primary reason for doing this is to raise awareness for City of Heroes. We don't want to make it seem like we're just using this event to further our own aims. Hopefully everybody participating believes that this charity is worthwhile on its own merits, independent of the pending events in our own community. Focus on that. It might be okay to reference those events lightly, but make sure they don't seem like your primary motivation here.
Make sure you set a fundraising goal! Ideally, you should set your goal low enough that you're pretty confident you can easily reach it. Then once you reach it, set a new goal that's a bit higher. And when you reach that goal, set an even higher one. You want to keep your progress such that you always seem like you're close and within reach of your goal, but not quite there. That is apparently proven to increase donations. For an example, I started mine at $100; when I hit $104, I raised it to $150; when I hit $204, I raised it to $250; when I hit $304, I raised it to $400.
A good way to raise funds is to approach people individually. Posting to Twitter or Facebook may help bring in some donations, but directly approaching someone will be much more successful. The Extra Life website has an interface to make it easy to send out an email, but I encourage you to write your own email and send it to each potential donor one at a time. That makes it feel much more personal, and less like you just clicked a button to send them an automatic message.
Once you've received a donation, make sure you follow up with a thank you message as soon as possible. Do
not wait to think people until after the event is over! People need to be thanked immediately. This improves a donor's sense that their contribution was appreciated and, even more importantly, it helps improve donor retention -- that means that if you run the event again next year, they're more likely to donate again and they're also more likely to increase their donation.
After the event is over, it's also a good practice to send out a final message thanking everybody
again and letting them know the wonderful success you and our team have had. That's separate from the first thank you message, though.
A little bit of extra work goes a long way towards raising money for these kids!
These apply equally well to our team page!! We do have a personalized the appeal message for the team page. But we definitely need to get some sort of image on there, and we definitely should set a team goal.
Maybe use
this if nothing else, though hopefully someone can suggest something better. It shouldn't be a "SaveCoH" graphic. It should just be a graphic that represents the City of Heroes game and community. This is pretty important, and it's easy to make happen!
A goal is also easy to set. Right now a goal of $4000 would be good.
If When we hit that, then we can raise it to $5000.
In case it helps anyone, you can look at my donor page to see how I personalized it a bit:
http://www.extra-life.org/participant/36685 As you can see, I didn't rewrite the whole thing. I just added some personal touches. And here's the email I sent out to some of my family:
On October 24, I'll be participating in a 24-hour video game marathon to raise money for my local Children's Miracle Network Hospital. Children's Miracle Network Hospitals treat thousands of children each year, regardless of their family's ability to pay. They help kids facing scary stuff like cancer, cystic fibrosis, and injuries from accidents.
I can only imagine how difficult it must be for these families. Facing a life-threatening illness or injury is bad enough without having to try to scrape together funds to pay for very expensive treatments.
The game I'll be playing is called "City of Heroes". In the game I'll get to play a superhero, but it's just a game. This marathon is an opportunity for you and me to be REAL heroes, helping to save kids' lives.
Please consider whether this might be something you'd be willing to donate towards. All proceeds go directly to helping children. You can donate securely through my page at the Extra Life website: http://www.extra-life.org/participant/36685
Please, don't just copy and paste what I wrote. Put it in your own words, it'll be far more effective!
